Fangirling

I'm not very interested in finance from an academic perspective. Too many equations. Theories that seem so distant from lived experience that I don't get the point. I have tried. Katherine Schipper* once gave me a good piece of advice: at a conference, go to sessions that have nothing to do with your area of expertise. I've learned a lot by doing this and it's especially useful if you are studying corporate governance which spans a range of different disciplines. Much corporate governance research is undertaken by finance professors. So I have sat through some mind-numbingly boring presentations by finance researchers, at the end of which I could only creep out murmuring "So what?" and seeking strong drink to revive me.

So I was very surprised to find myself enthralled by Professor Ian Tonks' Distinguished Academic lecture at the recent BAFA conference. His subject was the workings of the Universities Superannuation Scheme. My pension is with the Teachers' Pension Scheme (my former employer was originally a polytechnic) so there is no reason for me to be at all interested in USS and pensions are not remotely connected to my areas of interest. I didn't intend to go to the lecture but I was engaged in conversation with someone heading for it and found myself there quite accidentally.

This took place more than a week ago so I have of course completely forgotten the content but I have not forgotten the strange sensation of actually understanding what Ian was talking about. I also experienced something similar in a lecture by Stephen Hawking when I really couldn't have known what he was talking about but felt as if I did. I attribute this sensation to the great and unusual skill of someone who really knows their subject and can talk about it in an accessible way.

So Ian's lecture was the first time I have found a finance professor worth listening to. Or rather the first time I've heard one in person. Because there is one professor of finance who I greatly admire but have only watched online.

His name is Alex Edmans. I first came across him when I was asked by BEIS to analyse the responses to their consultation on corporate governance.  Alex's submission was the first I had read that suggested that the evidence about board gender diversity should be looked at critically. I wanted to cheer! Who is this person who agrees with me? I looked him up - a professor at LBS, no less. A finance professor. I searched for his publications and my heart sank. But then I thought a bit more. Here is an academic who certainly knows his stuff, on a large scale, and can also express his conclusions in accessible language. I found his web site - http://alexedmans.com/. Well worth digging around in - good stuff on the pros and cons of Brexit,  a couple of interesting TED talks and even some of his data to share. This is a finance professor who wants to do research that matters and can be understood.

Then I found his Gresham lectures. He has now delivered five out of the series of six. Every time I've planned to attend, something has prevented me but they're on line here, together with transcripts and slides. And they are very good. His idea about the difference between pie splitting and pie growing is simple to express but very illuminating in the context of corporate purpose (and I do like a pastry-based metaphor...)

His January lecture on reforming corporate governance is especially good and worth reading alongside the paper authored by Sikka et al for the Labour Party as a 'compare and contrast' exercise. The final section on diversity makes the points that I've been rabbiting on about in this blog for a long time, but rather more elegantly.

Best of all, Alex is not afraid to emphasise the difference between correlation and causality which is often ignored - or indeed dismissed - in the diversity debate.

One day I hope to meet him. For now, I follow him on Twitter and wherever else he pops up. You should, too.

*No, she's not my BFF. We were on a plane, both travelling away from a conference where she had spoken, either side of the aisle, and she looked very nervous so I introduced myself and engaged her in conversation to distract her.